Amy Qualls is a quilter and Drupalist based in Portland, Oregon.

Main menu

work

I don't talk much about wishes or dreams. It's not my way. There's a life list, but I don't say much about my plans to cross things off of it. Right now, though, I have a big one in my crosshairs, and I figure it'll make some people smile if I talk about it.

If you ever wonder why it's hard to walk away from work, it's because exchanges like these happen when you least expect it. As a setup: Adam is one of our new Australia staffers, who was on the last leg of his journey home to Australia after working in Boston for three weeks.

I am moving off of the front lines, at my company, into more of a management role. I'm shifting from the badly-named tier 1 team (tier 1 at this company is FAR more than what you'd think of as "tier 1" support, probably T2 or T3 anywhere else) to a Training and Documentation Coordinator.

The question was pretty simple: how did one person in Alabama become a ticket-smashing machine while maintaining clear communication and genuine customer focus?

The follow-up question is even simpler: and how do we teach this intangible?

It is axiomatic: every workplace that is partially virtual, and dependent on IRC or chat for department communication, must have at least one unofficial back channel. I, of course, participate in a few of those, and there's one in particular where we have a rule about not talking about work. (Except, of course, when we do.)